


Life in Technicolour

by whitchry9



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Auras, Colours, Gen, Supernatural - Freeform, Superpowers, episode by episode, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson sees into people's souls. Or that's what it would be if he believed in souls.<br/>He sees their colours dancing around. Strangely enough, Sherlock has colours he's never seen before. Never like that.</p><p>Being continued with the new series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Study in Pink... and Violet and Blue and Black

John was turquoise with splatters of blue, like someone had flung paint at him. He thought he looked rather nice, and took pride in that, despite the fact that no one else could see it. Still, he felt a bit proud when he met someone with ugly orange shades or tinted with brown, and felt a tiny bit happier to know that he was the colour of the sky, at least most days.

He hadn't always been turquoise, or at least had seen that he was, although he suspected the colour people were was constant throughout their life, so he would have been blue, even prior to his seeing it. But this seeing part was a relatively new development. Post Afghanistan. That was really what his life had become now, things that were Before, and things that were After. 

John had been interested in his own colours for the first few months, but after the novelty of them had worn off and he was discharged from the hospital with a cane and a therapist, they didn't seem to matter as much. And like they somehow felt it, his colours faded and shrunk away from him.

Things were dull in London. The colours just couldn't compare to the blood red of the many things in Afghanistan, the sunsets, the sand, and the blood of the men around him he couldn't save.

So he wandered around, looking for bright people and things, all the while feeling himself growing more faint.

 

Mike was looking particularly green that day when John met him again. So much, in fact, that he almost missed him sitting in the park. He looked a bit like grass, fluttering about in the wind. John hadn't really wanted to meet him, to talk about what happened, but he'd been forced into it. 

“I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened?” “I got shot.”

Mike's colours blushed and grimaced, embarrassed for him, even if he didn't outwardly show it. John felt bad for that, and allowed the man to buy him a cup of coffee and they sat together on a park bench, Mike people watching and John for colours.

One thing led to another and John allowed Mike to talk him into meeting someone looking for a flatmate. 

This decision was one of the most influential in his life. _(Going to med school, signing up for the army, getting shot [not a decision], coming back to London, not jumping off the bridge that day, and now this. Allowing Mike to drag him into this mess that would become his life.)_

 

Sherlock was perhaps the most brilliant man he'd ever seen. At least, that was going by John's initial impression of his colours. He's never seen someone who was so wholly violet before. He'd seen people with streaks of violet, or occasional patches, but he'd never seen someone who had been practically entirely shrouded in violet.

It left him with no words for a few minutes. 

John offered him his phone, any opportunity to get closer, and found that light pink and yellow tendrils reached out to his wrist. He heard most of the conversation, and wondered if he perhaps missed the most important bit when the brilliant man invited him to come live with him. 

“Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening; seven o’clock. Sorry – gotta dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

John gaped at this strange man who he'd just met, with colours he'd never seen before, and who was still nameless.“Is that it?” “Is that what?” “We’ve only just met and we’re gonna go and look at a flat?” “Problem?” “We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we’re meeting; I don’t even know your name.”

And the violet man ran through a series of facts about him, flashed a smile, offered a name and address and was gone.

John looked over to Mike, whose colours were hovering about rather sheepishly, and he only said “Yeah. He’s always like that.”

 

He met Sherlock again the next day, still the brilliant shade of violet, leading John to wonder if the man was like this all the time. It might be hard to look at him so much, especially if they were going to live together.

 

The landlady was lovely, a Mrs Hudson who fretted about Sherlock like a mother hen. She was emerald green and indigo with streaks flying around. John liked her immediately. He tried not to judge people by their auras, but it was rather difficult, seeing as they were excellent judges of character.

 

A man showed up at the flat, a man who looked exhausted and tired of life, defeated to be coming to Sherlock for help. His colours were subdued, but John still recognized the dark red of a capable and realistic man. He asked Sherlock for help, with a suicide no less, and while Sherlock pretended to be only mildly interested, John saw him brighten more than he thought possible, and actually considered shielding his eyes. It subdued somewhat after Sherlock bounced around the flat, but John was still hesitant to share a cab with him. But of course he did.

Sherlock dragged him to a crime scene. He met a woman who was bitter, and man who was even more so, and a dead woman who had nothing. Dead people didn't have auras anymore. The disappeared along with all brain function. The soul, some might say. Not John.

(He's seen far too many brain dead patients, kept alive with ventilators and machines, people who were technically still living, but had no colours, no aura, no life. He hated those patients.)

 

Sherlock ran off and left John alone. He was picked up by a car with a strange woman whose colours didn't believe any of what she was saying. It was interesting to watch, like a lie detector that only he could see. He smiled at himself. 

She took him to a building to meet with a strange man.

“You don’t seem very afraid,” the strange man informed him.

John almost laughed. No man with that colour could possibly be frightening.

With that mix of brown and grey shrouding his interior colours, that man was guarded beyond belief. But inside, there was a deep blood red. Sure, there were spots of other colours, but they were hidden by the murky outside, and most of all, that blood colour that hid everything else away. And where most people's auras danced and had little bits that flung out to touch others, body language for the soul, this man had none. His clung to his body like it was afraid to leave.

 _Definitely hiding something,_ John decided.

“You don’t seem very frightening,” he told him.

 

Yet some of what that man said rung true. (“Could it be that you’ve decided to trust Sherlock Holmes of all people?”) Because by the end of the night, John had shot another man for Sherlock, a dark and brooding man, a dying man. John could see death in him, could see it in most people. He even saw how he was reaching out to Sherlock, black tendrils like snakes reaching out to squeeze the life out of his brilliant violet. As soon as John shot him, the black fingers left Sherlock alone, and he grew brighter.

John crouched behind the wall, breathing heavily and eyeing a spot of dark grey that flickered around him for a moment before disappearing. _Guilt?_ No, he decided. He'd saved Sherlock.

 

He saved Sherlock that night and they went out for Chinese. John swore he practically felt himself growing brighter.


	2. Interlude

John grew into the new life that he found himself in. He'd never have imagined things would turn out this way when he was in uni, let alone even when he woke up in the hospital, thinking he was dying with all those white lights around him. (Nurses tended to have white auras, which was probably what lead to the whole 'light' belief that accompanied near death experiences.) It was strange and most people would have left after they'd found the head in the fridge, but John only looked at Sherlock with green edges, playing his violin contently, and made tea.

Sherlock was violet most of the time. He had periods of orangey yellow when he was thinking. During those not talking for days periods, he'd turn an intriguing shade of purple that was almost lavender. Those times, all John wanted to do was stare.

When he wasn't thinking, during those bored periods, he'd grow more dark green and John never liked those times. He'd have spots of gold when doing experiments that made him grow frustrated. It was those times John made sure to keep something near by to act as a shield in case Sherlock threw something, which had happened more than once.

John was no longer faded, no longer pale, no longer bored. John's colours deepened like the teabags he steeped for him and Sherlock. Strong.


	3. The Colour-Blind Banker

Sherlock had been slightly more unusual lately, which was saying a lot. After coming out of Soo Lin Yao's apartment, he'd been distant, raspy, and... well if John was reading him correctly, paler than usual. Not his skin (seemingly impossible), but his colours. Like he'd almost drifted away.

John had asked him, concerned, whether he was alright. Sherlock, being himself, only waved a hand at him and claimed he was fine.

John didn't quite believe him, but what was he supposed to do.

_Oh Sherlock, you say you're fine, but your aura is looking paler around the edges and it's looking a bit saggy around the head and shoulders area. So I'm going to ask you again- are you fine?_

No, that wouldn't do at all.

 

Soo Lin, when they finally met her, shocked John. Not her personality, she was perfectly pleasant, average intelligence, pretty. No, it was her aura, her colours that scared John. Because while she was shrouded in a dark grey, hiding, near her skin was angry fiery red and orange. She looked like she was burning. It frightened John.

But as she told them her story, she calmed somewhat, looking less like she was burning, and looked more like she was glowing. But then they heard her brother. Her brother who came to kill her. Gone was the fire, gone was the glow, and the dark grey threatened to meld into a black and envelope her completely. She was terrified.

(John would have been interested to know, that as she spoke to him right before he killed her, her aura calmed completely and mellowed to a pale green. Then there was nothing else.)

He watched Sherlock as he realized she was dead. Shame flickered in at his edges. Was it shame? Sherlock didn't seem like the type of person who would feel shame. Yet there it was, dark blue slipping in at the edges, a clear sign of guilt or shame. John would know; he'd seen it so often. Even in himself.

 

But they solved the case. Not entirely, Sherlock was unhappy with the conclusion, but John and Sarah survived, and that was good enough for them.

Still, dark blue lingered in Sherlock for the next week before it faded away completely.


	4. The Great Game and Great Absence

John had an uneasy feeling about the case from the start, the whole thing with the pips and poor people wired to bombs was unsettling to him. Especially that child... he shuddered thinking about it. Even Sherlock had shown doubt in his abilities, his usual confident shade of violet dimming in patches.

 

But it was really when John was taken on his way to Sarah's house that he became absolutely sure there was something really wrong going on. (The abduction should have been the major clue for that, but really, that was nothing. He'd had that happen before. It was the man who seemed to be in charge, the one who John figured was Moriarty, that was the truly shocking part.)

Moriarty had no colours.

It sickened John to look at him as he talked. John didn't hear the words. He was shoved into a bomb covered vest and a bulky winter coat, but he didn't really notice that either. He was both transfixed and horrified by the man who seemed to be singing at him, breaking out into yelling every once in a while. _He had no colours._

Why? How? The only people John had seen without colours were dead people or brain dead. People who no longer possessed 'souls'. Was that what this was?

(And how had he missed this? He'd met him before, playing gay, playing Jim from IT. Why hadn't he noticed an absence of colours then? Oh, right. That was the day Sherlock had drugged him. Sherlock had thought the effects of the drug would not be noticeable, as it was a rather commonplace drug. Sherlock had been shocked he'd noticed, as it usually took weeks for the effects of those drugs to be seen. There'd been quite a fight over that one, John being at the disadvantage of not being able to see Sherlock's aura to predict how the argument would go. As they did go, this one was not bad. Sherlock stormed out, but came back later with milk, his version of an apology. The effects of the drugs took a day to wear off, and John was stuck with relative blindness. If only Sherlock knew what consequences that experiment had...)

 

John saw the grey flashes of shock in Sherlock as he stepped out into full sight at the pool, speaking words fed to him by the soulless man.(Not really, but that was as close as John was going to get to an explanation at the moment, so he just went with it.)

Realization dawned on Sherlock finally, and John wasn't sure what was worse, the horrible thought that his flatmate was his enemy, or the idea that they could both die right there.

Sherlock had black tips on his aura, something that was just as concerning to John as was the red dots dancing on both of them. John hadn't seen Sherlock with black before, and worried that it meant fear. John wasn't sure if he could handle Sherlock Holmes being afraid of anything.

But Moriarty's phone rang and the colourless man answered it, practically singing and yelling at the same time. John was rather uneasy, because he could tell that Moriarty was extremely interested in who was on the other end of the phone, and if he had colours, the tips of them would be curling up in excitement. John was left with no data except for a strange smile and cryptic statement.

He may have passed out a bit after that, but he figured he was entitled, it had been an awful day, and between whatever drugs he'd been given to knock him out, the absence of colours that made him sick to his stomach, and oh, that near death experience may have weighed in.

He awoke at home to the lingering bad feeling in his stomach and taste in his mouth, but thankfully, Sherlock had returned to his usual violet state, no hints of black to be seen, even if he was a bit cloudier than usual.


	5. A Scandal in Belgravia and Blood Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so stupid. I uploaded this story ages ago and completely missed the fact that I left out a whole chapter. Ugh. Apologies.

Failure came in the form of a woman shrouded in blood red and murkiness.

Sherlock couldn't see that of course, he was distracted by the puzzle. But John saw what was underneath, or rather, on top, and knew that this woman was dangerous.

And he saw how Sherlock responded to her, his violet reaching out to her blood red and they twisted together. It was almost violent, like Sherlock was struggling to get away, but Irene held on tight and wouldn't let him go.

John wanted to grab Sherlock and free him from the Woman's clutches, but he'd tried that before, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not consciously make or break bonds. Unconsciously was an entirely different matter.

 

And in the end, it was just a trick. Perhaps even Sherlock's aura had been in on the secret deception, the long game, pretending to be held hostage when that was what it really wanted.

John wouldn't put it past him.

Sherlock won, and that was really all that mattered to him. He kept a speck of blood red on his upper arm, almost like a badge, a tattoo, a war wound. A sign of prevailing, of coming out on top.

 

John lied to Sherlock about Irene's fate.

“She’s in America,” he told him, feeling himself blush as he lied. Not the part of him that Sherlock could see, but blushing nonetheless.  
“America?”  
“Mm-hm. Got herself on a witness protection scheme, apparently. Dunno how she swung it, but, well, you know.”  
“I know what?”  
“Well, you won’t be able to see her again.”  
“Why would I want to see her again?”  
“ Didn’t say you did.”

John swore he saw signs of deception in Sherlock, sheepish hints that he knew something he wasn't letting on about, but dismissed it.

_Sherlock couldn't have been there. Could he?_

Then again, there was the patch of blood red he kept.

 


	6. Interlude

John didn't know how look it took him to notice, probably a very long time, because he tended not to see his own colours, rather like when your eyes adjusted to the darkness of a room. But one day, there he was, for some reason in front of a full body mirror (was it a case? Sherlock dragged him shopping?) and it was just there. A tiny spot of violet, the exact shade of Sherlock's base colour, suspiciously near his heart. He stared at it for a while, wondering if he was just in a mood, or if it was a trick of the lights. He stayed that way until Sherlock threw a coat at him (which neither ruled out or included either of the possible situations they may have been in) and he was once again distracted.

When he remembered, weeks later, he went looking for it and there it was. Still the small bit of violet, nestled near his heart.

He didn't really want to know why.


	7. The Spotted Heart of Baskerville

Sherlock could change colours in a blink of an eye, faster than John had seen anyone do before. (And this was including that one dissociative woman he'd met on his psych rotation.)

One minute they were sitting in front of the fireplace, Sherlock's violet flittering about nervously, and the next he was red, enraged, tendrils reaching out towards John like they wanted to hurt him.

And John apologized, for all the good that would do, told Sherlock that how should he know, he's only his friend, and as Sherlock told him he didn't have friends, John swore he saw something shift, one of those tell tale signs that meant someone was lying. But Sherlock didn't do that. _Wouldn't._

So John shrugged it off, left Sherlock to sulk, and went off.

 

The next morning, when Sherlock gave John his apology (if it could be called that) he noticed for the first time what appeared to be a different colour amidst all that brilliant violet. A colour he'd never really seen on Sherlock before.

And similar to John's violet patch, it clung to his heart. A small turquoise speck, almost too small to see if one wasn't looking closely for it.


	8. The [Reichenbach] Fall of the Violet Heart

John was shocked to see Sherlock on the roof, shocked in a way most people would have dismissed as denial, but this was John Watson, Sherlock's flatmate and blogger and personal doctor as well as the man who could see into his soul and there were absolutely none of those heartbreaking blue patches he'd seen before in so many people, even in himself, that indicated someone was close to doing that. To ending it. No sign of that pain, that sorrow, that unwillingness to go on any longer.

But perhaps those people were right. Perhaps John was just in denial, refusing to face what was right in front of him, not wanting to see the horrible, aching, gut wrenching truth. That Sherlock Holmes, the brilliantly coloured and brilliantly minded man that John cared so much for just jumped off a building in front of him.

Of course John was in denial, but that didn't mean that he had to be wrong, did it?

 

There was only one other thing that bothered John, that when he was stumbling over to Sherlock, aching to touch him, to feel a pulse, and falling into some well meaning woman's arms, Sherlock's colours were still bright, still dancing, and almost seemed to be reaching out to John. Caressing him. Soothing him. John had seen many dying people before, and their auras looked nothing like this, they were fading and seemed to melt back into their body before disappearing completely.

John wrote it off by saying he was concussed and in shock. Both of which were true. But he always wondered.

Wondered if there was still a brilliant violet man out there anywhere. Because if there was, John knew he would recognize him.

After all, he still had that bit of violet that clung to his heart.


	9. The Hearse Devoid of Colour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing on with the new episodes. Spoilers, obviously.

John had worked hard on ignoring the colours since Sherlock had died. Some days if he tried, it was like they weren't even there anymore.

(Still, there were days that he wished he knew what Sherlock had drugged him with all that time ago, because it might be better than being forced to go through life, heart leaping at the sight of any shade of purple, ever hopeful that it would be Sherlock. But it never was. Because Sherlock Holmes was dead. He had to accept that.)

 

But he was doing well. He'd moved on, or at least that was what he told himself. He had a new job. He didn't chase after criminals and get shot at.

And he met Mary.

Mary was peach. She was peach, and she was a peach, and John was madly in love with her. Sometimes, when he woke up with nightmares, still of Afghanistan or new ones of the fall, he'd let the light back in and just stare at her, letting her soft colour sooth his eyes.

 

John was going to propose to her that night at dinner. But that was the dinner where the violet encroached on his vision. He looked up, not at all expecting what he saw.

Sherlock. Alive. Not dead.

The bastard.

John saw himself tinge red, no longer holding back the colours. There were words coming out of Sherlock's mouth, and John forced himself to listen. Then it sort of got to the point where listening wasn't working any more, and John just needed to punch him.

So he did. (More or less.)

Then there was more talking, more hurting, more talking, and finally a head butt, after which he left to track down a cab, leaving Mary with Sherlock. When he looked back to call her, they were intermingling, the peach and violet exploring each other. John didn't like it.

 

He was going to stay angry at Sherlock for ever, at least, except there was an incident with a fire. And him being in it. So when he was pulled out by hands shrouded in violet, he sort of had to forgive him. Because he looked up and saw only violet, and he knew he was safe.


	10. The Sign of Three Shades

John was a little uneasy about the wedding. Sherlock had been a darker shade of brooding for the last couple of weeks, and Mary had picked up on it, no matter how much Sherlock tried to hide it behind napkins and to the second schedules. She sent them out on a case, and John couldn't help but love her even more for doing that, noting how Sherlock lit up.

(Of course, the man wasn't dead, he was still somewhat coloured, a royal shade of blue. Sherlock couldn't have known that, but still, he lit up as he realized what John had done. Saved a life. _Again._ )

Even if Sherlock didn't solve that case, the experience was one that wouldn't be forgotten any time soon.

 

Sherlock actually took John out to get drunk. There was one problem in that, of course. Perhaps if John hadn't been so drunk, he would have noticed the pink tinges on Sherlock.

 

He woke in the morning, the world too loud to fit in his brain and Sherlock's violet nature assaulting his eyes. Lestrade was no help, only adding more colours to the mix. John couldn't even stand Mrs Hudson later on, still too bright and happy.

 

Then there was the actual ceremony, which passed in a blur, then photographs, then greeting, then food, then... speeches. Specifically, Sherlock speaking.

He'd started off the ceremony as his vibrant self, but as it approached his time to speak, John could tell he was getting grey. He needn't have worried though, since Sherlock was his usual self, insulting everyone, then making them cry. _Happy tears,_ though. John couldn't help but hug him as he lit back up, their colours melding together for a moment. It was rather beautiful, or so he expected, since it was hard to see from the inside.

(And then Sherlock solved an attempted murder, but whatever, that was just a bonus.)

 

John looked back on the photos of the wedding day, the ones that had been taken by the photographer who was attempting murder. (Sherlock was right, they were rather good.)

And he couldn't help but love the one photograph. They looked quite nice together, the three of them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three of them was not intending to refer to the unborn child. It refers in this context to a picture of Sherlock, John, and Mary.


	11. The Last Vow of a Violet Man

John probably should have recognized that colour as soon as he set foot in the house, but he didn't. Ever hopeful that Sherlock wouldn't go back to drugs. (It also didn't help that he'd paled under their influence.)

He was mostly too angry at Sherlock for doing that, and couldn't ask about anything else. Of course, then he ended up at the flat with the drugs busting gang and Mycroft, then all hell sort of broke loose, Sherlock attacking his brother with flares of red, and John was seriously concerned.

 

Later there was a man who John immediately loathed. Everything else that came after was just proving his point. But he was _black._ John had never seen anyone so dark before. It left him uneasy for the rest of the day, until of course, that night, when Sherlock dragged him off to break into the man's office.

 

It was all a bit of a blur, except for the part where he found Magnussen and Sherlock both lying on the floor, Magnussen's blackness still present, no dimmer than before, but Sherlock... Sherlock was fading. Because he'd been shot. As the blood left his veins, the colour left his body, and John couldn't bear to see that happen.

“Jesus Sherlock,” he muttered, pressing down on the wound.

“Emergency, which service do you require?”

 

The ambulance took far too long to get there. Even on the way to the hospital, with medical interventions, fluid forced into his veins, an oxygen mask on his face, the colour was still leaching out of Sherlock. Like it should have when he died the first time. _No, he didn't die then and sure as hell isn't going to die now._

“Sherlock. We're losing you. Sherlock!”

_Don't fade on me now. I don't think I could bear it._

 

He was still pale when they made it to the hospital, but pale was better than blank.

They took him away, speaking of surgery and blood typing, and John could only wonder if he'd ever see that bright violet shade again.

 

And of course he did. Of course. Even though he'd been told that for a moment, one long, earth shattering moment, Sherlock had faded completely, he'd come back.

Not as strong as before, but John was confident he'd get there. Had to be; after losing him once, he didn't think he could bear it ever again.

 

But then he brought Lestrade to see his violet man, and he was nowhere to be found. Typical, really.

There was a search and a phone call, and John found himself pretending to be Sherlock in a house that wasn't a house.

And then there was Mary. The things she said... the things she'd done.

 

It was the murky pink. The combination of that and the orange was what made Mary peach. He didn't know how he could have missed it.

Love, perhaps.

That would have done it.

 

In the end, John finally forgave her. Because despite the pink, she was still orange on top, and that's all that John needed.

After all, who was he to judge?

He still had a spot of violet nestled next to his heart from a certain someone.


End file.
